I’ve been visiting my folks in Kentucky over the holidays, and have yet to get my internal clock aligned with their schedules. Not only am I a card-carrying night owl, it’s two hours earlier here so it’s not been unusual for me to find myself reading a book or surfing the net as the sun creeps over the eastern horizon. In case you didn’t know, there’s a LOT of stuff on the internet!

So after countless clicks one night, I found myself on a government website extolling the virtues of the new RealID that’s apparently in our very near Orwellian future. That’s a whole nuther post, but click on over if you want yet more evidence that the current powers-that-be are doing everything they can to ensure that we stay on a collision course with Big Brother. But of course, I digress…

The point here, is that while I was reading up on the RealID, I noticed that Homeland Security is showing a national threat advisory for all domestic and international flights at “High, or Orange.” In other words, if this was WarGames, we’d be at DefCon 4 — on the verge of a Russian nuclear attack!!! Now before you freak out, please read the site’s official explanation of what this means.

While there continues to be no credible information at this time warning of an imminent threat to the homeland, the department’s strategic threat perspective is that we are in a period of increased risk.

Now let me get this straight, “While there continues to be NO CREDIBLE INFORMATION at this time warning of an imminent threat to the homeland” the national threat advisory is one step from As-Bad-As-It-Can-Be?

What am I missing here? Is there a punchline? Either A.) They’re not telling us something, or B.) They’re full of a four letter word for feces. I personally think it’s both. They’re feeding us loads of poo, but not telling us WHY it’s so important for them to keep us all in this ridiculous state of fear. How much longer are we all gonna sit around and assume that some fat-cat suits in Washington D.C. have our best interest in mind? How many Senators, how many members of Congress, how many Federal Politicians do you think really travel like the rest of us? And yet these are the folks that pass the laws that govern how we get around.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think there are some decent politicians out there — or rather, I would ASSUME that there are. I also think that some terrorist activity probably HAS been thwarted since 9/11, but I don’t for a minute believe that it’s because I’m on the lookout for bad-guys and not packing a full tube of toothpaste. Which ultimately brings me to my point.

I ended up over at Jetlagged, a blog run by the NY Times, where Patrick Smith has fashioned a brief, but excellent treatise on the absurdity of air travel’s new and UNproved “safety precautions.” I recommend reading the whole article, it’ll only take you five minutes, but here’s a taste to whet your whistle…

The three-ounce container rule is silly enough — after all, what’s to stop somebody from carrying several small bottles each full of the same substance — but consider for a moment the hypocrisy of T.S.A.’s confiscation policy. At every concourse checkpoint you’ll see a bin or barrel brimming with contraband containers taken from passengers for having exceeded the volume limit. Now, the assumption has to be that the materials in those containers are potentially hazardous. If not, why were they seized in the first place? But if so, why are they dumped unceremoniously into the trash? They are not quarantined or handed over to the bomb squad; they are simply thrown away. The agency seems to be saying that it knows these things are harmless. But it’s going to steal them anyway, and either you accept it or you don’t fly.

But of all the contradictions and self-defeating measures T.S.A. has come up with, possibly none is more blatantly ludicrous than the policy decreeing that pilots and flight attendants undergo the same x-ray and metal detector screening as passengers. What makes it ludicrous is that tens of thousands of other airport workers, from baggage loaders and fuelers to cabin cleaners and maintenance personnel, are subject only to occasional random screenings when they come to work.

These are individuals with full access to aircraft, inside and out. Some are airline employees, though a high percentage are contract staff belonging to outside companies. The fact that crew members, many of whom are former military fliers, and all of whom endured rigorous background checks prior to being hired, are required to take out their laptops and surrender their hobby knives, while a caterer or cabin cleaner sidesteps the entire process and walks onto a plane unimpeded, nullifies almost everything our T.S.A. minders have said and done since September 11th, 2001. If there is a more ringing let-me-get-this-straight scenario anywhere in the realm of airport security, I’d like to hear it.

At the end of the day, I’m not ready to march on D.C. for the freedom to carry a full bottle of mouthwash, but it IS disconcerting how much time, money and energy is being wasted on an endeavor that does nothing more than aggravate folks. Washington is intent on keeping us scared, and this is one of many ways that we’re being bullied into compliance.

I’m flying tomorrow. We’re at DefCon 4, and I have to get on a plane and fly to a MAJOR metropolitan airport. No wonder I can’t get any sleep. Of course, if Matthew Broderick could just teach those pesky terrorists the futility of tic-tac-toe, we could all get on with our lives and fly in peace.